[10] In May 1950 the company announced that it had signed a £500,000 contract with FM Aspin and Co of Bury, England to manufacture and supply engines and gearboxes.

[11] Plans were devised to build a small front wheel drive car based on a prototype two door sedan developed by French designer Jean Grégoire.

[12] The choice to move forward with the Gregorie option was primarily based on the availability of the assets of the former Grantham operation at a significant discount.

The whole of the tooling, gauges, jigs, fixtures, patterns, dies and suchlike required for the manufacture of the car were available to be purchased for £30,000.

[12] The Hartnett, as it was to be called, utilised aluminium castings rather than the typical steel pressings, both to save weight and to reduce tooling costs.

[18] Sixty-eight percent of the vehicle was Australian produced with the imported components comprising the engine, gearbox, instruments and some of the brake fittings.

[20] On 23 April 1952 the company announced that several cars had been delivered to buyers in Victoria and that more would be completed weekly at the Frankston assembly plant.

[22] The original price of the car had been promoted at less than £300;[23] however, by the time the company was formed and before production had commenced it had already risen to an estimated £430.

[26] The first aluminium bodied Pacific Convertible vehicles sold in April 1952 cost £695 including sales tax.

Laurence Hartnett originally proposed that production of the car could be commenced in less than one year after the incorporation of the company in August 1949.

Secondly he asked whether the government owned Commonwealth Engineering had obstructed the manufacturing of the Hartnett car by failing to deliver steel body panels that had been on order for over 18 months.

[22] The company claimed that Commonwealth Engineering had failed to deliver 2,000 sets of steel body panels as agreed in May 1950 with delivery commencing by May 1951.